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The voice of The Sky Valley since 1899Tue, 03 Mar 2015 20:09:34 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.9.3Valley General in top three hospital in region for safetyhttp://www.monroemonitor.com/2014/07/01/valley-general-top-three-hospital-region-safety/
http://www.monroemonitor.com/2014/07/01/valley-general-top-three-hospital-region-safety/#commentsTue, 01 Jul 2014 21:41:22 +0000http://www.monroemonitor.com/?p=9468In preliminary Federal analysis of the track records of the nation’s hospitals, Monroe’s Valley General Hospital had the third-best ranking of 22 hospitals in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties for patient safety. In an effort to crack down on patient injuries and other “hospital-acquired conditions”, the Federal Government has toughened penalties on hospitals that have [...]

]]>In preliminary Federal analysis of the track records of the nation’s hospitals, Monroe’s Valley General Hospital had the third-best ranking of 22 hospitals in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties for patient safety.

In an effort to crack down on patient injuries and other “hospital-acquired conditions”, the Federal Government has toughened penalties on hospitals that have the worst rates of patient safety. Those hospitals that fall into the worst-performing quarter of hospitals nation-wide face one percent cuts to their Medicare payments for a year, beginning in October.

Perhaps surprisingly, it is the state’s largest and most prestigious hospitals that are struggling the most with infection rates.

In the three-county area, Harborview Medical Center tied with Swedish Medical Centers at Cherry and First hills for the highest score of 7.73, with lowest scores representing greatest safety.

Northwest Hospital in Seattle had a slightly lower score with 7.6. Those hospitals could face sanctions starting this fall.

Valley General had a score of 4, bested only by St. Francis Community Hospital in Federal Way with a score of 3.05 and Highline Medical Center in Burien, with a score of 2.05.

“Five or lower is good,” said Lisa LaPlante, Chief Quality and Compliance Officer of Valley General Hospital. “We’re at four. Right now, if you look at our clinical outcomes, we do as well as any other facility.”

Concern has risen nationwide as infection rates remain high. In 2012, one in every eight patients got a hospital-acquired condition, according to government estimates. That is especially worrisome, given the appearance of new antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria that are hard to cure.

The favorable results for Valley General Hospital are at odds with rankings put forth by a private ranking firm called LeapFrog.

In 2012, LeapFrog rated Valley General Hospital one of the 25 worst hospitals in America.

But those statistics were misleading, said Michael Fraser, who was serving as an interim CEO at the time.

Valley General offers geriatric care And Alzheimer’s care, which leads to a high rate of falls and skin sores, leading factors in the rankings.

And, said LaPlante, hospitals that filled out LeapFrog’s voluntary questionnaire and reported that they didn’t have full-time “intensivists,” or people specialize in critical care, were automatically given a grade of F.

But small hospitals like Valley General can’t afford full time intensivists, she said.

“Instead, Valley General has hospitalists, who are specialists in internal care, which includes some critical care. That is why more critical patients are sent to places like Providence and Harborview.

This year, Valley General joined half the hospitals in the United States in declining to participate in the LeapFrog survey.

]]>http://www.monroemonitor.com/2014/07/01/valley-general-top-three-hospital-region-safety/feed/0VGH failing safety grade result of inaccurate data assessment, CEO contendshttp://www.monroemonitor.com/2012/12/11/vgh-failing-safety-grade-result-of-inaccurate-data-assessment-ceo-contends/
http://www.monroemonitor.com/2012/12/11/vgh-failing-safety-grade-result-of-inaccurate-data-assessment-ceo-contends/#commentsTue, 11 Dec 2012 22:27:30 +0000http://www.monroemonitor.com/?p=1175By Polly Keary, Editor A national hospital rating organization that last week named Valley General Hospital one of the 25 worst hospitals in the nation was acting on misleading data, said hospital officials last week. The Leapfrog Group, which each year surveys hospitals and issues safety grades, gave Valley General Hospital an F for [...]

A national hospital rating organization that last week named Valley General Hospital one of the 25 worst hospitals in the nation was acting on misleading data, said hospital officials last week.

The Leapfrog Group, which each year surveys hospitals and issues safety grades, gave Valley General Hospital an F for patient safety, one of 25 hospitals nationwide to fare so poorly.

But Michael Fraser, interim CEO of VGH, said that Leapfrog’s grade is misleading.

Valley General Hospital is one of a very few hospitals of its size in the nation to have a unit for Alzheimer’s and geriatric care. Because the law prevents restraints that could prevent falls but that curtail quality of life and sometimes safety, patients occasionally fall. And also, the skin of the elderly is fragile and prone to bed sores.

Falls and bed sores are among the things Leapfrog considers when tabulating data.

“They included information from our geriatric and psychiatric unit that treats Alzheimer’s and dementia, who are prone to falls and developing bed sores, and we’ve had a limited number of each of those that greatly distorted our statistics as a community hospital,” Fraser said. “We haven’t had sores and falls with our medical treatment.”

Leapfrog gave VGH a B last year.

And EvergreenHealth, which is now affiliated with VGH, got an A this year, noted Evergreen CEO Mark Firmani.

Half the hospitals in the United States don’t respond to Leapfrog’s annual survey, leaving the organization to seek out data in other ways, too, noted Fraser.

And several large medical groups have criticized Leapfrog for poor data analysis that leads to skewed results.

The American Hospital Association in a recent article alleged that Leapfrog is biased to hospitals that take the surveys, that it uses unreliable measures and that there are significant errors in Leapfrog’s data, all claims that Leapfrog disputes.

Other hospitals argue that Leapfrog uses data that is sometimes several years old.

Firmani said that Evergreen will still respond to Leapfrog’s surveys, but that they will be more proactive in presenting information so that Leapfrog can get a more accurate picture.

“I think we will continue to participate, but we’ll be more assertive in the data,” he said. “We learned about what happens when you mix data.”